Crime Traveller - Time Travel is Possible
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: A series of chapters showing different characters feelings of time travel existing.
1. Chapter 1 Stephen Marlowe

**Disclaimer - I don't own Crime Traveller. I just own this. **

**Please let me know what you think. **

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**Time Travel is Possible.**

**Stephen Marlowe.**

_It's so strange; when you read all of those science-fiction novels and watch all of those films about space travel, everyone depicts wormholes as just glowing versions of the tunnels you find on the London Underground, _Stephen Marlowe thought to himself as he watched his friend and mentor, Professor Frederick Turner sitting at the controls of the time machine.

A _real-life _time machine.

Time travel was possible.

Okay, granted, it wasn't as sophisticated and as boundless as the time machines depicted in HG Well's _The Time Machine, _or the TARDIS from _Doctor Who, _but in some ways, it had the simplicity of the slingshot effect from _Star Trek. _

There were no black holes, there was no advanced spacecraft which had left Earth's gravitational pull, and it hadn't dive-bombed a black hole, or something insane like that; the chances of going into a black hole, and not be ripped down to sub-atomic particles, only to find yourself in the past were remote anyway.

All there was were particles everyone out there was in two minds about, and they created a formless, invisible wormhole, which transported them back into the past, while at the same time creating a different time-zone so when the versions of himself and Professor Turner set up the time machine, the watch which synchronised the time machine, breaking the Loop of Infinity, would still be there, except, as Professor Turner insisted, it would be in another temporal dimension; the science had confused Marlowe at first, but he had gradually come to understand the time machine _split _time in half into different time streams; so when Marlowe and Turner spent the next day in the past, the watch would still be here.

It was incredibly confusing, but gradually he had come to understand it.

While it was disappointing time travel into the deepest past, say a hundred years ago into Victorian times, or even further back into the past, such as the Jurassic period was not possible, not with this machine since it obeyed the irritating chronological protection law which stayed a time machine which was built at a certain time and used at a certain time, it could not go too far into the past, the fact remained _time travel was possible. _

And besides, from what Professor Turner hinted, it would not be impossible to imagine somewhere, out there, in the universe, there was a civilisation out there who had discovered some natural opening in time and space, one which would allow travel into the past, and which obeyed the laws of chronological protection, and wouldn't travel deeper into the past, but thanks to the loophole of its creation allowed time travel into later periods, or they had simply created some kind of time tunnel-based around differing principles to the type of time travel Turner had devised and sent it off into the future, similar to the Eternals from Asimov's _The End of Eternity. _

Stephen watched Professor Turner while the time machine continued sending them into the past; because of the scarcity of components which could handle high-energy power surges, and because the power needed to start the tachyon bombardment to create the wormhole was enormous; if they used the machine too often, it would create problems for the Professor, though if they were connected to a nuclear reactor, it wouldn't be as problematic except Turner would never allow it.

As he stood over the table, Marlowe's eyes swept over the time machine.

Watching Professor Turner who was still watching his creation which he loved just as much as his daughter Holly, Marlowe wondered to himself what the Professor had in mind for the time machine in the end; annoyingly enough, the professor was very tight-lipped about his long-term plans, so Marlowe couldn't be sure either way.

But Marlowe had come to know quite well, and while he had heard Turner talk about presenting his invention to the world at large, he had also heard the professor speaking about little else but conducting one experiment that he had dreamt up after another in order to test how time travel worked. Marlowe couldn't blame the professor for that; when they had first started, how were they meant to know if they tried to take pictures of different events which took place in the past it would be a temporal paradox and one which caused the photographs to disappear? Or how about their attempt to change history after they had spent about a week looking and listening for something noteworthy enough to change, and they had heard about a robbery of a cafe in the town

_What about my own experiment? _

Stephen sighed under his breath; it wasn't worth the effort though since the time travel process was making enough noise as it was and the Professor rarely if ever paid attention to anything when he was in this precious room, and yet he couldn't help but feel the same annoyance he'd had festering within him when he had tried, and failed, to provide his younger self with something as simple as a couple of horse race scores; Stephen didn't really go in for anything like that, no matter how lucrative it could be in the long term, but while he had received the letter his other self had sent him when it had been _him _he had accidentally thrown it in the bin, and he didn't find it until the day the bins at his place were due for pickup.

The letter was in an envelope without a name on it, but Stephen knew if he had just written his own name on it, in his own handwriting, then he would have opened it.

Unfortunately, because it was blank, he had just assumed it was one of those annoying people who kept shoving junk into other people's letterboxes. In hindsight, Stephen had to admit to himself he hadn't even _thought anything of writing his own name on the letter. _And because of that lack of forethought, Stephen Marlowe had inadvertently ensured the experiment had not worked out.

Time did not allow cheating, and when he had told Professor Turner, not that he'd had much choice given the older scientist had stayed with him and refused for any opportunity for them to be separated; the older man had been sharper than Stephen would really have liked. Turner had not said a word when he had posted the letter through his own letterbox containing the details of the horse race, but when Stephen later admitted to Turner what had happened, the older scientist had said, in that philosophical manner of his, that perhaps time was more complex than they had imagined.

Stephen had not really paid much attention to the scientist, mostly because the professor usually spun philosophical guesses and theories about the nature of time travel before he solidified it in hard scientific truth. Truth he, no doubt, spun to Holly. Stephen knew that Turner's daughter knew about the time machine; Turner didn't keep it a secret, and to be honest, Stephen didn't really care given how the older scientist had inspired the girl into becoming a quantum physicist herself.

No matter.

He had already received a letter from Webb Biotech a few days ago, inviting him to become a part of their organisation. Hopefully, within a few years time, he would have gathered enough power to construct and utilise his own time machine.


	2. Chapter 2 Jack Slade

**Time Travel is possible.**

**Jack Slade.**

His new digs were quite nice, and ever since he had been pardoned and given a hefty compensation bill for his wrongful arrest and imprisonment, he had managed to buy a new place, and he had managed to get hold of some work as a security consultant thanks to a couple of his old friends in the Met who had been in two minds about his arrest in the first place.

They had known him for years, known him as a dedicated police officer for years, and they knew if he had become corrupt and had stolen some cash from that bank job, he would have done a better job at hiding it.

Jack still could not believe the lengths Gareth had gone just to get rid of him, and more than once ever since the day Jeff and Holly had come to visit him in prison to tell him Jeff had been set up, and £25,000 had been put into his bank account and some diamonds had found their way into his freezer, and he had learnt that Gareth and Lenny Gebler had conspired together to get themselves rich and well set up while getting rid of a couple of cops along the way, just _what he had done to deserve it in the first place._

Jack closed his eyes and pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He was just thankful the pair of them were behind bars now, and he hoped Gareth was finding life a bit intolerable inside while he was doing time. While he had assumed they had been good mates, Jack had not been blind to Gareth's occasional moments of arrogance, and how he had sometimes lost control by pointing the finger. But now, it was only a matter of time before Gareth really paid for his actions. Jack could more or less forgive actions towards him; he was a grown man, he had also been a copper, and he knew being accused of things went with the territory but only to a certain point.

But Jack was sickened the bastards had targeted Jeff. He had no idea how long Gareth and Gebler would do time for since he had only sat in the first parts of the trials and he had just ignored the rest, but he hoped they stayed in prison for a helluva long time.

_Time. _

The moment the word echoed in his mind, Jack looked down at the book he had just spent the last hour reading. Jack had never really read informational books, but in the library at the prison it had helped him pass the time, and he had learnt more about things like the oceans, about jungles and rainforests, and yet he had never read Professor Frederick Turner's book about time travel because he had believed at the time there were more realistic things to read, only that was before he had discovered something odd.

When he had found out Jeff had been accused of stealing those diamonds and had that £25,000 in his bank account, Jack had assumed, understandably, it had happened fairly recently, and yet when he had taken a look at the case thanks to Kate because he had wanted to know more about what Gareth and Lenny had said in their respective interviews, he had thought there was some mistake. While Jeff and Holly had been with him, Holly had been in the office, and Jeff had been unconscious in a public park after Gareth had drugged him.

At first, Jack had thought there was some kind of timing mistake, but it wasn't. Jack knew Kate would never make a mistake like that and he doubted any of her officers would be so incredibly inept to get the time wrong, especially since Kate's signature was on the reports, so he knew she had taken a look at them to verify everything was status quo.

It hadn't made any sense to Jack, and like the experienced copper he had been, he had asked Kate if he could read up on the files of Holly Turner and his own son so he had some idea of what his son had been doing, and his partnership with Holly; he'd had to use one of the old favours he had saved for his old friend, but Kate had let him have them.

But he'd had an ulterior motive. He wanted to find out for himself if there was anything similar in the files, and there was. Some time ago, Jeff had jumped the gun, and he had chased after a _thing _who had murdered so many people with a machete which was nearly a short sword in reality, only for the car to fall from a car park and plunge to his death.

Jack remembered how he had winced at his son's pigheadedness, but he had been embarrassed because it had reminded him of himself; he knew he was an older version of Jeff in some ways, but he would never have made such a fundamental mistake like disobeying a senior officer.

But then again Jeff was a maverick, something Jack really believed should be in the police, even though there were lines even a maverick should not pass over. Jeff had nearly been kicked out of the police for his mistake…only for him to get the knife because he had wanted to find out what Silverman was doing at the railway station in the first place.

But after that….

Jeff and Holly both seemed to be solving crimes left and right, which was odd because Holly had never really been involved except within the scientific side of the cases. Now she was taking a more direct role, and while his son was solving cases left and right there were some things which made little sense, but Kate had noted them down. If Jeff truly thought for one moment Kate hadn't noticed anything, he needed a few lessons in detective work.

There had been moments where there had been other timing discrepancies; one of the biggest cases that had happened had been when Holly claimed she and her aunt, Mary Chandler, never really spoke, and yet _Holly had been in the restaurant where her aunt was poisoned. _Other things jumped out as well; Jeff and Holly were solving crimes left and right, and they had solved a blackmail racket, a couple of murders. In one of the cases, someone seemed to have recognised Jeff, calling him 'Wilson' although it was quickly forgotten before anyone took notice, but Kate had noted it down anyway but nothing came from it, and the case was just forwarded to the CPS, who cared more for results than little loopholes which were irrelevant.

They had gone into incredible detail about the various cases that had been investigated, in such great detail in fact almost as if they had seen them happening.

But of course, that wasn't possible.

And then he took a look into Holly's file, and he noticed she was a quantum physicist and was listed as being the daughter of Professor Frederick Turner. When he had seen the name of her father he had started to suspect a time machine. Jack had remembered the copy of the very book he was reading that he had seen the prison library and had merely glanced at the cover before he decided he wasn't interested. But now he was; okay, quantum physics wasn't exactly something he could understand, but the Professor had taken that into account as if he wanted everyone from scientists like himself as well as people who didn't understand anything about quantum physics.

But the book was merely to give him something to read, so he could better understand what his son was now doing. Jack was convinced his son and Holly were time travelling, especially since they had been so evasive with his questions but he had dropped the questioning before he had gone too far and they had called his bluff, but he wasn't sure if it was true or not.

He looked down at the book and thought about what he had read. He had to admit it was a riveting read, especially since Professor Turner had a fascinating way of writing about time travel, and about temporal paradoxes _as if he had experience of it. _

Jack continued reading the book, although he was still uncertain if the time travel existed or not. It was all paradoxical.


	3. Chapter 3 Jeff Slade

Jeff Slade.

Jeff smiled as he walked Holly back to her flat after their date, and his smile widened when he saw the look on her face. He had been interested in the beautiful and talented science officer for some time, even longer than before he had known she had access to a time machine. But while they'd been on speaking terms, he had been careful not to blow it like some of his other girlfriends, although Holly was nothing like them, since as a quantum physicist she was incredibly intelligent as she was beautiful.

However, he knew Holly was interested in him as well; he remembered how their first meeting had gone, and he had caught her staring at him a few times, and they had a generally good relationship even if they didn't have similar interests in some fields but that didn't matter since they both gelled so well together.

But Jeff wasn't stupid; he knew one of Holly's biggest fears was he would dump her if something happened to the time machine, and that he had only started dating her because of the machine. But he was nothing like Marlowe, who had only gotten into Professor Turners' life because he wanted to learn more about time travel for his own use. He wasn't hanging around Holly the way Marlowe had hung around her father when he had been working on his time travel experiments before he had _disappeared _and was only dating Holly simply because doing so would bring him closer to the family.

There was no doubt in Jeff's mind that was one of the reasons why Marlowe had dated Holly. He had wanted to learn as much as he could about time travel so he could build a time machine of his own, or provide enough knowledge and insight for another scientist, or scientists since he had manipulated Chapman and Haywood into building that more advanced time machine at Webb Biotech.

No, while the time machine had certainly brought them together, Jeff knew eventually he would have become more friendly with Holly. The fact he was able to bond with her when they travelled back, and she kept him from trying to change history helped; it had taken him some time, but he had eventually gotten the lesson he could not change history, although it hadn't stopped him from time to time.

There were times he still could not believe time travel was possible, as though out of a _Doctor Who _episode. Okay, so the time machine itself looked like a heap of junk or one of those artist exhibitions who had simply gathered a collection of electronic parts and stuck them together, but it worked.

He remembered how disappointed he had been when he had found out about the machine, believing Holly was making it up until much later, and they had journeyed back into the past.

Sure, he had tried to change history once or twice - that thing with Sonja Duvall one of the biggest examples, or that time he had tried to win the lottery using the time machine to go back into the past so he could bet on the winning numbers, but he had learnt so much about it. Also, he had seen first hand what a temporal paradox was when he had held two photographs after Sonja's 'murder' that Holly had taken of Hopkins, and the helmeted figure they later realised was Sonja, and not her sister Linda like they'd originally suspected, only for the photos to both go blank when he and Holly had returned to the present.

Jeff _still wasn't sure _about the other paradoxes, but he didn't want to cause a schism, especially since Holly had told him it would destroy the entire universe. Another thing was he'd learnt, slowly, once something had happened in the past, _there was no stopping it. _He had worked that out gradually, but the most biggest proof of that had been when Holly had come back in time after seeing him taken to the hospital.

Their relationship was still thriving, and it was going slowly; Slade knew that most people would have expected him to get into Holly's panties by now, but he had no intention of pushing her down that route until she felt comfortable. If she confronted him about it, or she was the one to imitate it, then great, but he was content to wait and just take it slowly. Ever since he had recovered the electromagnetic crystal from Marlowe's machine, they had begun spending more time together, and for that he was grateful especially after what she had been through; yeah, he had been a bit of jerk during that time since he had continually accused Marlowe of being responsible for the one of killing Chapman and Haywood.

What had disappointed and hurt him during that time, was Holly had thought he was just being petty on purpose since Marlowe had been her boyfriend once, and even liked that old French black and white movie the night Chapman was run down by Marlowe while he was time travelling.

Slade knew that he was a bit jealous, but if Holly really thought that he was letting his own feelings cloud his judgement, then she didn't know him. Okay, he had been a bit jealous, especially since Marlowe and Holly had a common ground between them both, and it frightened him for a while he would come to be tolerated by the woman he loved, and it had terrified him when he had realised Marlowe had a time machine of his own.

What made it all worse was he really was the killer, as Holly found out; Slade knew how frightening it was to be threatened. He had been threatened many times in the police, and he had almost potentially lost his life once; if Holly hadn't seen the news report, and travelled back in time to try to stop it, even though she had known she couldn't have prevented the event since it had happened in the first place. He wasn't stupid; he had done some reading in time travel theories ever since he had found out about Holly's machine, but his practical experience helped him get some clues about what was and wasn't possible.

He and Holly rarely time travelled nowadays. Ever since the cracking of the original crystal and the new one which he had managed to save from Marlowe's time machine, Holly had been frightened something else would go wrong. She had wanted to do some work on the machine, work which would have taken months and months of her salary as a Science Officer working for the police, but he had helped her. He had given her some of his cash, and he was even thinking of selling his own flat, or renting it out if he could get the money to do it up a little bit better to earn some additional cash to help Holly with her work.

Holly had been taken by surprise by his idea…

"_What's what, another bill?" he'd asked when he had gone round to her flat for a visit. _

_Holly barely looked into his face as she read the letter. "Yeah. They never stop. When I was alone I would only use the time machine for controlled experiments, but something would continually break. It seemed like the time machine wanted to break down, to give me trouble."_

_Jeff stared at her with concern, noticing her drawn and tired look. "What did you do before?" _

"_Sometimes I would wait for a few months before I sent off for parts, and then conduct the experiments then. You've got to bear in mind, my father assembled the machine gradually over the years. Like me, he only conducted a few controlled experiments. He knew he could travel back a week or two, but at the time….he wanted to take things slowly with the initial experiments before he looked to lengthening the photon rods. That's when it happened."_

"_The Loop of Infinity," Jeff whispered, his eyes troubled and dark as he remembered seeing the Loop first hand. It had been weird to see Marlowe repeating his actions over and over again while the time machine he had made Chapman and Haywood build burnt itself out before it finally destroyed itself. _

_Holly winced at the mention of the time loop. "Yes."_

_Jeff had told her what he had seen in the car on their way back to the flat, but only after he and Holly had only __**just **__managed to persuade Webb and Grisham Marlowe __**really had been the murderer, **__and he had hired someone to kill him, Jeff. Holly had been the one to bail him out there and then, by telling Grisham and Webb Marlowe had taken her to a cold storage facility, and he had tried to kill her by leaving her to die by being frozen to death, and Marlowe had confessed to being the killer, although he hadn't said why. _

_The salvaged gun Marlowe had used had been saved from the destroyed lab where the time machine had been kept, and the fingerprints on it had corroborated the story although neither Jeff nor Holly could explain his reasons for becoming a killer, knowing neither Webb nor Grisham would believe them if they mentioned the existence of the time machines. _

"_I don't want to use the time machine at all, at least not until after I've sorted my finances out," Holly went on in a whisper. _

_She lifted her head and he saw some real fear in her eyes. "This time machine…it might drive me insane at times, but it's all I've got left of my father. Please, don't force me to destroy it unless the crime really is big."_

_Jeff licked his lips as he took in her terrified eyes as he was reminded of how he had broken into her flat and used the time machine even as she'd expressly told him not to do so. He looked between her expression and the letter still clasped in her hand. Suddenly an idea came into his mind, and he suddenly felt clearer minded. _

"_What if I help you?" he asked. _

"_What?' Holly blinked up at him in surprise. _

"_What if I help you with the time machine?" Slade went on. _

"_I don't understand-."_

"_I can sell, or even __**rent out **__my flat, get some income, and use that to help you with the time machine," Slade went on, smiling at Holly. _

_The young woman blinked up at him in surprise. "Why would you do this?" she asked. _

_Slade licked his lips. Even though the pair of them had clasped their hands on the electromagnetic crystal, the change in their relationship had been unvoiced, but now was a perfect time. _

"_I love you, Holly," he said. "I truly love you. And besides, I think I gave something back."_

Jeff Slade truly did not know what sort of things would happen in the near future, but he didn't care. He would always be there for Holly, and who knows, maybe in the future, he and she would be able to use the time machine for other things.


End file.
